


From The Outside In

by Palefire73



Series: Prisoners. The Chronicles of Loki and Erika [9]
Category: Loki - Fandom, Marvel
Genre: Alternate Reality, Asgard, F/M, Prison, norse gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 14:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11209827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palefire73/pseuds/Palefire73
Summary: Of course, there were many measures put in place to ensure the prison did not fail - and Odin's obsession with ensuring Loki never gets out is leading to problems of its own.





	From The Outside In

Unknown to Erika and Loki, there were several cameras situated around the small holding which were concealed in such a fashion as to make them undetectable. They had been put there as part of the measures insisted upon by Odin when he had reluctantly agreed to Thor’s plea to have Loki imprisoned rather than executed and he could access them on a device given to him by The Vision. The All Father sat down at the vast desk in his office and unlocked one of the drawers, from which he retrieved the device, and he activated it, bringing up a lock out screen. He entered the name of the birth mother of his nemesis and after a few seconds, another screen loaded up showing six small frames in which there were moving images. He clicked on one of them and it expanded to cover the whole screen and Odin was now looking at a view of the paddock where there were a few horses roaming around. Some were grazing, some were simply wandering around and Odin was pleasantly surprised to see that they all looked very healthy and content.

 

Then Loki came into view with a lead rein and vaulted over the fence to go up to a young-looking Roan. Attaching the lead rein to the bridle the horse was wearing, Loki then led it towards a gate in the fence which led through to a ménage. As Odin looked on, he squinted at the figure of the person leading the horse. That _was_ Loki, was it not? As he looked more closely he could see that it was, but this man was not the anaemic, skinny black haired God who had been in a coma in the Soul Forge only a few weeks ago. No – this man was of a healthier build, with a hint of colour in his cheeks and his hair… Odin jabbed at the screen as an image of Loki as a small child came to mind, with deep brown hair streaked through with red. A hollow feeling formed in his chest as memories of shouting after the boys for running through the Palace corridors came mind, as well as swimming in the lake as a family and skipping stones as far as they could across the still waters. Yet that was long gone. Odin could not allow such sentiment to rule his heart when considering one such as Loki. Although the Trickster had been instrumental in the rise of Asgard as a shining and glorious city, he had betrayed the one who had brought him here from the underworld. If Odin had never saved him from the devastated ruins of Jotúnnheimr, then he would never have left the realm of Chaos to grow and to flourish in the known worlds. Odin could not and would not dissociate Loki from Frigga’s death despite the fact that it was Thor’s bringing of Jane to Asgard which had caused her true murderer to come here.

 

Pressing the screen once again, another camera’s view appeared and Odin continued to look on.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Erika peered inside the beehive and counted the combs and examined their state. She checked the feeding tray and found that the sugar syrup she had left out for the colony was gone and she smiled; this one was ready. All that was required was to replace the top and then put some insulation and anti-predator measures in place. That was three of them done and only… Erika counted the other hives left to attend to and shrugged; if they were all at the same point as these ones, then today would be very productive indeed!

 

A slight shiver went down her back and she turned to look behind her, but there was no one there. Frowning, she looked around at the trees, at the pylon upon which they had a modest windmill to generate some power, at the gate posts, but there was nothing.

“Loki?” She called, wondering if he was there but using his cloaking Sedir to prank her as he had often done in the Palace, but there was no reply. “Oh well,” She said, and turned back to her beehives; they needed to be protected before the really bad weather set in.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Odin blinked as the girl turned around and looked right at him; she could not see him, surely? He snorted as he realised there was no way she could; the camera was secreted in a windmill at the top of a tall pylon and it would need to be dismantled and scrutinised before the tiny lens and transmitter were found. After a few moments she turned back to her work and he almost laughed at himself as he let out a small sigh of relief. Yet this was possibly one of the greatest benefits of giving in to Thor and allowing this prison idea to go ahead: the girl was no longer in Asgard and was now no longer a potential threat to his sovereignty as predicted by that so-called prophetic song Gaia had revealed to him. Yes, Erika was also in the best place as far as he was concerned, especially as she was now also destined to live for a very long time and although he would have preferred to see the Trickster swinging from the end of a rope, perhaps this was the best solution all round.

 

He pressed another part of the screen and this now revealed perhaps the most important part of the whole scheme to keep Loki away from the Nine and prevent Ragnarök. It was a view of a black plinth in a very dark room which seemed to have no entrance – at least in the view of the camera – and looked to be purpose-built to conceal the item on view. The only thing illuminating the small space was a blue cube of intensely blue light. The Tesseract. The location of this immensely powerful object was only known to one person and that was The Vision. The mechanism through which the prison Loki had been consigned to was very clever indeed and had made full use of the properties of the Tesseract in its construction and operation. Odin’s strongest stipulation was that the prison be completely sealed and that no one was to enter or leave – ever. Obviously, to have a reality confined to one place which would take up virtually no space in the real world was a big enough task, but to have it operated and kept closed for all time also required something of immense power. The Tesseract had been on Asgard for some time and was going to be used by Loki to pay The Collector, Taneleer Tivan, for keeping Odin and Thor prisoner on Midgard while The Trickster ruled over the Nine. However, it was also one of the gems that The Titan, Thanos, desperately wanted in order to complete his Infinity Gauntlet so he could destroy everything and win the heart of Mistress Death.

 

Upon Odin’s triumphant return to Asgard, Taneleer realised that he was not going to get the Tesseract, but he realised he did not want it anyway. Thanos had charged him with finding all of the Infinity Stones and he had a few of them already – either actually in his collection or within his reach – and the situation was reaching a critical point. He had decided that he was not going to turn the stones over to the insane Titan after all – why would he want to risk the destruction of absolutely everything? – and he decided to donate the blue cube to Thor’s cause. The power and capabilities of it had helped to create the alternate reality and its infinite power would now keep it locked. The absolute genius of The Vision and Erik was demonstrated when they devised a locking mechanism that would work from another location and that was why no one would be able to open that door: the lock now existed outside of all known time and space in a location from which only The Vision could retrieve it.

 

Asgard had quickly got over Loki’s temporary rule. With Odin and Thor back, and with all the major projects underway to restore her former glory, the Gods, Nobles and citizens of the shining city seemed to be happier and more optimistic for their future. The King and his sons were kept busy by and large and did not have a lot of time for reflection on the troubles of the last few years, but there were a couple of things which were gently spoiling all of this in the background.

 

Odin had won The Sight the hard way, and the visions he was given were often ambiguous and open to his own interpretation. One of them, which had started within days of throwing the Jotúnn bastard into that prison, was of him sitting on his Throne having an afternoon doze on a particularly quiet day only to wake up to find Loki looking down at him only seconds before he plunged Gungnir through his chest. It was a difficult one to ignore, of course and it was leading to an almost obsessive need to check the cameras inside the prison on a daily – if not more frequent – basis. He was not able to simply forget the Trickster and consign him to history.

 

The other thing which troubled him was Thor’s general demeanour in private. Although The Thunderer presented a formidable and dependable front in public, in private it was a different matter and Odin was disappointed to see frequent displays of restlessness and melancholy in his golden haired son. He had approached Thor a couple of times to ask after him and to try to get to the bottom of this behaviour, but Thor had quickly laughed it off and blamed it on his busy Royal engagement calendar. Yet Odin had seen him leaving the Palace late at night on a few occasions to go to walk down to the lake – and he was quite sure that he had gone all the way to the site of the prison door. Why, he did not know: the door was now invisible to all, having been disguised by the Tesseract, and it was not as if he could knock on it to say hello, was it? As he thought about this again, anger flared in Odin’s chest and he banged his fist on his desk in frustration.

 

Even locked away, even in a completely different reality to his own, the Trickster refused to be forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! I have been busy training for more races, but I have been managing to get the odd few paragraphs written inbetween. Hope this latest instalment gave you a more rounded insight into how imprisoning Loki is not just affecting his life and Erika's.
> 
> Palefire73  
> x


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